Forgive me father for I am about to yap 🙏. I just wanted to talk about my thought process when it came to the ask I sent for Caleb. I don't play the game but I love seeing the memes and art from the fandom. One thing I've seen is seeing male players talk about being judged/attacked (for lack of a better term) for playing LADS. Most of the arguments I see being "This is an otome game" or "the boys aren't gay" seeing those comments I thought "Why don't I take these comments and use them as the basis for an angst scenario. And bringing China's LGBT censorship gave me the idea of "What if because of how they were raised what if Caleb was repressed and didn't know he also had an attraction to men". I also took from my own experience from when I was in the closet and seeing other guys interact with each other and sort of based Caleb in this scenario off that behavior. His environment taught him to have an aversion to anything queer so instead lingering on any complicated feelings he could have for male reader he clung to the one person that gave him a sense of normalcy with what he was feeling, mc. For people who know me at first glance or at a superficial level I very much lean into comedy and it may make me seem a lil childish but my creativity allows me to think on uncomfortable topics with the grace they deserve and lead to create apparently really enjoyable ideas!
Tldr: Instead of doing a funny teehee haha like I usually do, I wanted to think more critically of what could be an enjoyable LADS fic idea ╮(. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)╭
It's the INFP in me.
yap is always welcome dont fret (id also put the praying hand emoji but im currently on desktop so </3)
i wanna really quickly address a point you brought up, about male players/men playing lads and the way the community treats that. not really talking specifically about what you said, but something pertaining to it. this ask actually gives me an opportunity to say something that i lowk have been wanting to sayyyy omg. anyway onto my point. (i’m also not directly addressing you when i’m writing this, i’m speaking just more so generally/whoever reads this) as far as i know, the lads community doesn’t ostracize the men who plays lads, i mean i haven’t seen it and i’d rather nto immediately assume that all fem players would be mean and say these things LOL. but i do know a lot of fem players complain about seeing men ask for the game to be gay, or for there to be a male mc. and i understand where they are coming from, to an extent. this is, i think probably since mystic messenger, the most in depth lore driven otome game that has come out in a while WITH also really stunning graphics, designs, art, etc. so i can understand the frustration of; why can’t we have this one good thing for ourselves?
but what i don’t get is spinning the narrative so aggressively to say “the love interests aren’t gay!!!” which i get why they are saying that, it is an otome game, the love interests are men and the mc is a woman lmao, but the way i see so many fem players drive that point so deeply and so repeatedly is kind of overkill? i want to phrase this carefully so i’m cleaerly understood, but sometimes it can come across angry that male reader/male players even exist in the space, ykwim? like why are you playing my heterosexual otome game, this isn’t a space for you….when it’s like, queer people are going to be in every space known ot man, since queer people exist in literally every community. obviously this is NOT all lads fem players, it’s just some of the ones ive seen on the internet that talk about male players in the fandom are so angry ? and hostile. and obviously, if male players are making spaces uncomfortable, where the only example i could think of is insisting and constantly asking for there be an official, playable male mc (i don’t agree with that sentiment btw), then fem players have the right to tell that individual, hey this is not the place for that, this is not the space for that etc.
but generally speaking, queer people can be apart of any community and exist in it, peacefully and non-maliciously ofc as anyone should, and it shouldn’t be a problem? again im not saying that all fem lads players are rude and want male players to jump off a cliff LMAO i am NOT saying that. i just think, wasting energy on telling the nonmalicious male players to get out of the fandom/this is not the space for us is seriously … a waste of energy as i said LOL anyway now IM THE ONE YAPPING, it was just something i’ve been thinking about because i’ve seen so many tiktoks as of late really driving that point “the love interests aren’t gay!!!” so aggressively to male players….
like we are all here to admire the pretty pixelated men, why are we all over generalizing and fighting each other T.T
also your thought processing in creating that idea and ask is truly something so interesting and smth i love doing too, like applying real life situation and reactions and possibly creating fic ideas with that. because, obviously, instances like that truly do happen and i think showing that experience through fanfictoin can seriously open the minds of anyone who reads said fanfics. it’s also super humane of a response of what you’re describing, making the fanfiction even more dimensional and relatable.
ok yap session over, sorry. also if i phrased anything oddly or i came across in a weird way, please just lmk and i’ll try clarifying what i mean since i dont think im completely articulate rn (runnin on no sleep + brain fried from doing my humongous assignment through the night)